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Silent Easter Monday

by Binaural Space

supported by
Matthew Nowik
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Matthew Nowik A lovely and soothing long form piece. Wonderful with headphones.
Scott Lawlor
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Scott Lawlor I love the ambience with the nature sounds and the psychedelic vibe of the drones as the piece progresses. Think Michael Stearnes meets early Pink Floyd. I give this my highest possible recommendation.
Allister Thompson
Allister Thompson thumbnail
Allister Thompson This is basically perfect classic ambient, with its delicate synths melding with the field recordings, in the vein of Michael Stearns' "Morning Jewel." You can't miss with this one.
The Lifted Index
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The Lifted Index Binaural Space performs some kind of magic on ‘Silent Easter Monday’. Delicate beauty is conjured from birdsong, sparse synthesizer swells, and chewy tape saturation. It is calming, healing, and truly wonderful.
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  • Streaming + Download

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  • Signed Limited Edition Green Cassette in a Red Case
    Cassette + Digital Album

    The acclaimed Easter album loved by fans and musicians around the world finally on a cassette!

    And not an ordinary one – one in Easter colors!

    Limited Edition Green C48 Cassette with black handwriting in a Red Case. ?♥️

    Each cassette was real-time recorded directly from analog master played on a fabled Marantz deck to a warm and beloved Nakamichi tape recorder = every single copy is unique and has desired little artefacts like warble, flutter or wow, making your cassette a hearty lo-fi original.

    As always, the cassettes will be shipped as express registered shipments from April 6 on so you’ll receive a tracking number from us and the tape itself should arrive soon.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Silent Easter Monday via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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1.

about

Every year right before the Easter – on Green Thursday, Good Friday and White Saturday – Czech boys form groups and walk through villages, rattling their rattles, ratchets and noisemakers. On Easter Monday they return to the streets, equipped with pussywillow twigs, they sing and recite Easter carols.

This year they didn’t.



I got up early this Easter Monday. At 5:30 A.M. I went to the garden and started recording the sounds outside with my binaural microphones. I planned this almost a year in advance, hoping to record the carollers strolling the neighborhood. The only unknown back then was whether the kids would go from left to right or from right to left.

I couldn’t have known those 12 months ago that due to the coronavirus quarantine, streets would get deserted from March on. There were no carollers outside this Easter, no cars on the roads, no planes in the sky. The village went silent from people, their activities and their machines. The weirdest Czech Easter of modern time – my eyes saw it, my ears heard it but my brain still didn’t believe.

The birds grabbed the opportunity and started singing like never before, ten times more than usually, celebrating life in their own way. I quietly walked through our garden, hiding Easter Eggs for our kids and enjoying the bird concert. After days of almost summer weather it started drizzling for a couple of minutes and that even added to the astonishing atmosphere.

Within an hour I hid all the eggs and a “treasure” of chocolate coins, turned off the recording and played parts of it before the kids and the village woke up. It was wonderful – both the recording and the experience.

During the day, after the crafty kids found every single egg and coin, I was thinking about the situation, people, close future.

Although circumstances are scary, I’ve noticed many positive things. I’m happy for less cars in the streets, better air in cities and folks being nice and thoughtful. I’ve been touched by people’s solidarity, their generosity and the way the situation inspires artists. I’ve been searching for the ultimate soundtrack for this period, to suppress my anxiety, feel well and sleep even better.

Many albums have been released these weeks. Some of them are entertaining and I like them and feel I need them. Some are shallow and I’ve found out I don’t have a tolerance for such even now – or, perhaps, especially now. Some are serious, dark and gloomy and I can’t listen to these, not yet. And a few are nice and kind and for me personally those are the most fitting for these times, most needed. Nevertheless, the perfect soundtrack remains yet to be found.

And then it occured to me:

I have the greatest soundtrack of and for our time already in my drawer: the recording from this morning – the birds singing like in those bygone times before people took over the landscape!

The thought excited me: How about composing an album so, well, ambient that it would leave the right amount of space for the birds as well as for the echo of carollers from the past? Music blending with the sounds of nature in the most human, most natural way possible, an album that will be able to heal, to calm down, to put to sleep children and adults alike and, ideally, to give hope. Both perfect accompaniment and desired antidote for these days.

I didn’t hesitate. I made lunch and closed myself in the studio with my four-track tape recorder – this project demanded the analog way – for the rest of the day and night. Then I went to sleep for a couple of hours and the next day I finished the 100% analogue recording as a calm digital version of a warm album, full of desired tape saturation and pleasingly overdriven chords and melodies.

My previous one took me four months to get released. This current one took less than two days of deep, focused work. I replaced perfection with flow and authenticity already with the previous album Untuned Piano Day and I’m very happy it’s worked for me again: for me personally this album is as beautiful as the previous one, loved by dozens of wonderful people, while being totally different.

I finished it and since then have been trying it on myself. It works for me exactly as I hoped for, even as a falling asleep music. Maybe just because I’m tired as the birds’ wings from the time not long ago when they weren’t allowed to sit and enjoy the view…

This is the farthest I left my musicianship behind ever so far, and just let it happen. The result speaks for itself.

This album wasn’t among the planned releases for this year, it is special and it is, I deeply feel, needed out there. How to set a price for something made overnight but with the power to be helping people for a long time?

Isn't such an album priceless? I decided I’ll let the fans and listeners decide. This album is, like the Xmas one, for free or pay-what-you-want and it will stay this way so all of those who need it can listen to it whenever they want to. My gift to fans, listeners and people in general for this strange period. I hope you’ll like the album. I belive it will take you places, heal your soul and relieve your mind. If so, please let me know; I’ll be glad to hear.

Don’t forget to listen with your headphones if you want to enjoy the binaural sound of happy birds everywhere around you.

Thank you and take care of yourselves.

Binaural Space, April 14, 2020, day after the Silent Easter Monday

credits

released April 15, 2020

Artwork by pH

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Binaural Space

Ambient traditionalists say to Binaural Space what the Emperor said to Mozart: “Too many notes.” In both cases, the rest of the world tends to disagree.

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